Warwick Stubbs’s Reviews > The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science > Status Update
Warwick Stubbs
is on page 306 of 554
Part 4: William Herchel's fame grows while Caroline comes closer to being fully independent; Part 5: a shorter chapter rushing through a successful exploration of Africa by Mungo Park to the disastrous second attempt resulting in Park's death; Part 6: details a youthful Humphrey Davy on the verge of discovering the use of Nitrous Oxide as an anesthetic, but mostly just "experimenting" on himself with "laughing gas".
— Oct 07, 2022 01:31AM
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Warwick Stubbs
is on page 459 of 554
Mary Somerville's 'On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences' was noticeable because it was written by a woman, but not particularly addressed to women readers - let alone children. This pointed up the paradox that women were not yet accepted as equals by the male scientific community, although in the crucial field of interpretation and explanation to a general public, they were already the pioneers.
— Oct 16, 2022 12:32AM
Warwick Stubbs
is on page 381 of 554
Part 7 looks at the discussions on vitalism and suggests precedents that may have influenced or inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Part 8 continues on with Davy inventing the Gauze Safety Lamp to stop coal miners from getting blown up. Meanwhile his marriage is disintegrating and this 554 page book feels more like a biography of two major figures: William Herschel and Humphry Davy.
— Oct 13, 2022 12:08AM
Warwick Stubbs
is on page 301 of 554
Part 7 looks at the discussions on vitalism and suggests precedents that may have influenced or inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Part 8 continues on with Davy inventing the Gauze Safety Lamp to stop coal miners from getting blown up. Meanwhile his marriage is disintegrating and this 554 page book feels like a biography of two major figures: William Herschel and Humphry Davy.
— Oct 13, 2022 12:06AM
Warwick Stubbs
is on page 163 of 554
Part 3 "Balloonists in Heaven" is a shorter chapter and doesn't focus on one individual specifically, but instead surveys with great humour (and some tragedy) the first attempts at flight using air-balloons and the subsequent race to cross the English Channel / La Manche between the English and the French. This chapter made me want to look up the references and go read some more about these crazy pioneers!
— Sep 22, 2022 02:43PM
Warwick Stubbs
is on page 135 of 554
"The wicked wit of man always studies to apply the results of talents to enslaving, destroying, or cheating his fellow creatures. Could we reach the moon, we should think of reducing it to a province of some European kingdom."
- Horace Walpole, 1783
— Sep 20, 2022 01:45AM
- Horace Walpole, 1783
Warwick Stubbs
is on page 125 of 554
Part 2 is an equalling absorbing account of William and Caroline Herschel’s early lives leading up to William discovering Uranus in 1781 using his own meticulously crafted seven-foot reflector telescope. Mostly sourced directly from Caroline's own journal entries, we see the brother/sister relationship up close. William was sympathetic to her needs, but he did also treat her as an assistant, rather than as an equal.
— Sep 18, 2022 09:19AM
Warwick Stubbs
is on page 103 of 554
"So, besides the two main projects, to record all new double stars and all new nebulae, Herschel also embarked on a third and partly secret programme in 1779: to discover life on the moon."
- p.94
— Sep 16, 2022 08:41PM
- p.94
Warwick Stubbs
is on page 60 of 554
Part 1 is an absorbing account of Joseph Banks' travels and time at Tahiti on the Endeavour that covers his education and inheritance of great wealth, to his later settled years. The 3 months in Tahiti is the main focus, though, and describes an 18th Century man more sympathetic to the Tahitians, and more willing to experience a new way of life, as well as mitigating several potentially dangerous interactions.
— Sep 14, 2022 12:37PM
